Death & the Gravedigger's Angel

by Loretta Ross

  “I didn’t know there was going to be a freak show here, too.”

  “I see them,” Death agreed with a wry grimace.

  “See who? What? Where?” Wren stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd.

  “Over by the street sign. It’s the CAC. What they’re protesting here, I can’t imagine.”

  “Oh yeah,” Wren said. “I’d heard they might. They’ve been saying we’re damned because we let a Muslim be buried in the city cemetery and that we should dig up her body and burn her as a witch to appease an angry god.”

  Randy shook his head in disgust. “His own son is murdered and this is how he honors his memory? By being hateful to strangers? The only reason you can even call them human,” he said, “is because there’s no animal that deserves such a vile comparison.”

  “I don’t think their protest is having the impact that they were going for,” Death observed.

  The CAC protest was made up of half a dozen people holding signs that said things like Jesus hates you and God damns you all. The only festival-goers who were paying them any attention were a trio of drunken young women who were giggling insanely and using the CAC as a backdrop for selfies.

  “I wish I was good with photo editing software,” Wren said. “I’d take pictures of them and then change what their signs say.”

  “What would you make them say?” Death asked.

  “Well, see that tall guy? I’d put one of those aviator caps with the big goggles on him and make his sign say ‘I like the tinman.’”

  The Bogart brothers both stopped and stared down at her.

  “I don’t get it?” Randy said.

  “A Christmas Story? The movie? Remember? The weird little kid in line to see Santa? Never mind … ”

  Death laughed and gave her a one-armed hug as they turned away toward the stage on the west lawn. As he looked back, though, Tyler Jones turned as if he sensed Death’s scrutiny and their eyes met over the crowd. Jones glared and shook his sign at Death. It said James 4:9. When they’d reached the stage and found good seats for the talent show, Death took out his phone and looked up the reference.

  “‘Be afflicted and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy into heaviness.’”

  _____

  The stage, set up in the municipal parking lot on the west side of the courthouse, was actually a flatbed trailer donated for the evening by a local transportation company and decked out with bunting and makeshift curtains. The local radio station had set up a sound system, with giant speakers on both sides of the stage and a DJ in front of it playing music. They also had a roving reporter who was providing live commentary on the festival in between songs.

  Death and Wren had listened to him in the car on the way over. Now Death was keeping an eye out for him, because if they saw him he’d need to be protected from Wren. His commentary consisted of a lot of “who is that? Is that who I think it is? That over there? It looks like … no, maybe not. Oh! Hey! What’s going on over here? Well! Isn’t this something.”

  Wren was planning to find him, smack him, and shout, “We can’t see what you’re looking at! There’s no picture! You’re on the radio, you moron!”

  “When do the Keystones appear?” Death asked.

  “Probably not for a while,” Wren said. “They usually start with the little kids and work their way up to the grownups.”

  “Okay, so level with me. Are we going to be sitting here watching sickeningly cute children in elaborate costumes struggle through ‘I’m A Little Teapot’?”

  Wren whistled and looked away.

  Death sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Randy made a popcorn run and got back just in time for the opening of the Forty-Fifth Annual Heritage Days Talent Show. “What did I miss?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Damn.”

  All in all, the children weren’t as bad as Death was expecting. The first one on stage was a toddler in a dinosaur costume. The DJ put on a children’s song, the baby’s mother handed him a microphone, and he marched to the middle of the stage, put the mike up to his mouth, and announced, “I can go pee all by myself.”

  Then he proceeded to demonstrate.

  By the time the audience settled down again there were a bunch of fifth-grade girls singing Motown and the roving reporter was standing beside Death’s chair saying, into his own microphone, “Now, who is that little girl? The one in the red? I should know who that is. Do you recognize her?”

  Death slipped his arm around Wren, pulled her close, and covered her mouth with his own, drawing the kiss out until the reporter had moved away. He released her and she sat up, blushing and gasping for air.

  “You can’t save him,” she said when she could speak again. “I know where he lives. But please feel free to keep trying.”

  They sat through a surprisingly good clarinetist and a really bad juggler and finally the announcer stepped up and introduced “The Dancing Keystones!”

  The crowd (many of them Keystones) roared, Death and Wren and Randy cheering along with them, as Sam and Doris Keystone danced their way onstage. Sam was dressed as a gangster, in a pinstriped suit, a narrow tie, spats, and a fedora. Doris was a flapper, in a bright blue, sleeveless dress that came just to her knees, and flat-heeled, black patent leather shoes. She had her hair done in finger waves and a wealth of long beaded necklaces.

  The DJ put on some swing music that Death thought his grandparents would have probably recognized, and Sam and Doris danced and spun across the stage. They’d reached the other side when Roy’s voice, sounding cranky, came from offstage.

  “Wait! Wait! You started too soon! What in tarnation are you doing, starting without us?”

  “Well, you shoulda been on time!”

  “Well you shoulda waited!”

  “Well”—Sam waved his hand—“what in the world were you doing that took so long, anyway?”

  “I hadda put my costume on and make myself pretty.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Brother, there ain’t a costume in the world that can make you look pretty.”

  “You say that,” Roy retorted, “but don’t forget we’re identical twins!”

  He came onstage, finally, leading Leona by the hand, and the crowd went wild. Roy and Leona were dressed for disco.

  Leona was wearing short-short blue jean cut-offs and a midriff-baring peasant blouse, and she had her hair done up in a huge cloud around her head. Roy wore a form-fitting polyester jumpsuit. It was brown on the bottom and a pale tangerine on top, with wide bell bottoms and a zipper down the front. He had the zipper open almost to his navel, and a welter of heavy gold chains and medallions nested among his gray chest hairs. He was sporting an honest-to-God afro.

  Sam waited for the furor to die down before he turned to his brother and spoke again.

  “I thought you were going to wear a costume.”

  Roy puffed out his thin chest and thumped his breastbone. “You’re just jealous because you don’t look snazzy like me.”

  “I remember when you wore that to prom.”

  “At least I got to go to prom.”

  “Hey! I coulda gone to prom,” Sam protested. “I just didn’t because I wanted to protect my best girl!” He put one arm around Doris and hugged her.

  “Protect her?” Roy demanded “Protect her from what?”

  “From having to see you in that getup.”

  Roy pushed his sleeves up and strutted up to his brother like he was going to fight him. Sam met him in the middle of the stage, belligerently, and their wives caught at their arms and dragged them apart.

  “Now, come on, fellas,” Leona said. “Are we going to fight or are we going to dance?”

  “Yeah,” Doris said. “We want to dance.”

  Roy pulled himself up, very proper, and sniffed at his brother. “The ladies,” he said, “want to dance.”

  “I’ll show you dancing,” Sam retorted. He took Doris in his arms and they resumed their J
itterbug while Roy looked on, pantomiming annoyance.

  Roy went to the edge of the stage and engaged in an elaborate, silent argument with the DJ that ended when he pretended to slip him a folded bill. The swing music cut off and was replaced with the Bee Gees. A spotlight came on and found Roy, who strutted and pranced across the stage, pointing at the sky and wiggling his hips.

  Leona stepped back and crossed her arms. “Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”

  “Hey!” Sam protested. “Wait a minute! We were here first! What happened to our music?” He shouted and waved his arms at the DJ.

  “He can’t hear you,” Roy said. “He’s got a twenty in his ear.”

  “That’s not dancing!” Sam ranted.

  “This,” Roy said, discoing and wiggling, “is just as much dancing as this”—he mocked a jitterbug—“is!”

  “It is not! This”—Sam jitterbugged—“is dancing, and this”—he pretended to disco badly—“is not!”

  “It’s all moving in time to the music! It doesn’t make any never mind whether you move like this”—Roy swung his hips side to side—“or this”—he wiggled them back and forth.

  Sam disagreed. They danced a carefully choreographed argument around each other, swinging and jiving and bickering in time to the music until they both wound up stooped in awkward positions moaning about their backs.

  Doris and Leona dragged a wheelbarrow in from offstage, piled their husbands into it, curtsied to the crowd, and wheeled them away to the sound of laughter and applause.

  _____

  Wren was still giggling as she and Death made their way through the dwindling crowd, headed back toward where they’d left his Jeep. Randy had excused himself to go check on something and they walked close together with their arms around one another. It was getting late and the food and game stalls were beginning to close down, but the rides were still up and running. Death paused as they came abreast of the Ferris wheel and nodded toward it.

  “It’s a nice night. Shall we go for a ride?”

  “Okay.” Wren looked around. “We’ll have to see if we can find a ticket booth still open.”

  Death held up two cardstock rectangles. “Got it covered.”

  “Well, look at you being all prepared!”

  “I keep telling you, Boy Scouts got nothing on the Marines.”

  The line was practically nonexistent. They wound their way through the cattle rails, handed off their tickets at the entrance to the fenced area below the ride, and in just a couple of minutes were coming up under the wheel. They waited while the couple ahead of them boarded, then that gondola swung up and away, an empty one came down to a gentle stop, and it was their turn.

  Death climbed on first and turned back to help her step from the solid deck onto the rocking car. When they were seated he put his arm around her shoulder and she snuggled up against him. The ride attendant latched the bar across in front of them and the wheel turned, gliding them back and up.

  Death clenched his hand around her shoulder and took a breath, but waited until they were near the top of the wheel to speak.

  “So, I’ve been thinking about us moving in together … ”

  “Oh.” Wren turned a bit so she could see his face and steeled herself for disappointment. “Are you having second thoughts?”

  “No. No, just the opposite, actually.”

  The fist-sized yellow bulbs that outlined the wheel cast a faint golden glow across the car without really illuminating anything. The merry-go-round was still playing in the distance, but the bright melody did more to accentuate the silence around them than to break it. Their gondola crested the wheel and a light breeze lifted Wren’s hair from her forehead. The town and the countryside and the entire Earth spread out below them, but here there were only the two of them.

  They might have been the only people in the world.

  “I love you Wren. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m more sure of that than I ever have been of anything. So I was thinking, instead of just moving in together, maybe we should go all the way.”

  Surprised, she made a little noise and gave him a weird look. He caught her eye, read her mind, and laughed.

  “Silly! I’m not talking about sex.”

  “But then … ?”

  He reached his other hand over, took her chin, and turned her face up toward his.

  “Wren Morgan, will you marry me?”

  “Oh!” Surprise stole her breath away. Tears filled her eyes and her throat. Unable to speak, she simply nodded.

  “You will?”

  She nodded.

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you ever going to be able to talk again?”

  “Maybe?” she said. It came out as a squeak. Death laughed and held her close.

  “I have a ring for you,” he said, “but I’m afraid to take it out up here. I think my hands are shaking. I’m afraid I might drop it.”

  “I know my hands are shaking,” she agreed. “No! Don’t drop the ring! That would be a bad omen. I can put it on when we’re on the ground.”

  “And wear it and be mine. Always and forever.”

  The wheel had come around while they talked and risen again to the top of the world. It was a light night, with constellations worked in silver sequins against an old-denim sky. A crescent moon pendant dangled in the east. The stars above seemed closer than the lights of the midway below.

  Wren put her head on Death’s chest.

  She could hear his heart beat.

  sixteen

  “Mom? It’s Wren. Call me when you get this, okay? I have something to tell you.”

  Wren hesitated. She didn’t want to share this news in a voicemail, but she was going to be telling it over the phone anyway and she knew that her mother would worry and imagine terrible things if she couldn’t get hold of her right away.

  Wren’s mom had been a medications technician. Her dad had been with the Department of Conservation. They were calm, dependable people who’d lived in the same place for almost forty years, working and raising their family. The last thing she’d expected them to do when they retired was sell their house and become nomads. With a pop-up camper hitched behind her dad’s truck, they’d set out to see everything within driving range.

  Her mom made stuffed animals and dolls and exhibited them at craft shows across the country. Her dad had won horseshoe tournaments in twenty-three states and counting. Neither of them had ever gotten the hang of technology. They weren’t even interested. They had a cell phone for emergencies, but tended to leave it off and buried in the glove box for days at a time. Wren was more likely to get a postcard or a box of random souvenirs in the mail than a phone call. She didn’t even know what state they were in. Last she’d heard, they were wandering around lost in the Appalachians.

  She sighed.

  “It’s Death,” she said into the phone. “He’s asked me to marry him. We’re getting married. Call me when you can and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  She hung up and set the phone on the mantle in the Hadleigh House game room, noting that the battery was getting low and making a mental note to plug it in. The beautiful night had given way to a dreary, drizzly gray day. Nothing could put a damper on her spirits, though.

  The game room was on the first floor at the northeast corner of the house. It featured a full-size pool table, two card tables with comfortable chairs, end tables, club chairs, a liquor cabinet that was still stocked with bottles she knew nothing about—she’d have to ask the twins what they were going to do with those, since they didn’t have a liquor license—and a bookcase full of vintage board games.

  Wren set an open box on the pool table and started dealing out a fancy old deck of cards beside it, sorting it into suits to see if they were all there. She stopped on the king of hearts to admire her new ring again.

  Death had bypassed the standard diamond solitaire in favor of something more personal. It was a low-profile, so it wouldn’t snag w
hile she was working: a gold band inset with a design of linked hearts worked in sapphire, diamond, and opal. It fit perfectly and she was waiting for someone to notice it. Now that she’d told her parents, sort of, she felt that she could share the news.

  So far, the only person she’d seen was Robin Keystone. He was walking around in a happy fog because he’d talked to Sarabeth Hensley the night before. Wren doubted he’d notice if a 747 came in for a landing on the lawn.

  As if thinking about him had summoned him, the teenager appeared in the doorway.

  “Wren? Do you mind if I go ahead and leave a bit early? Sarabeth’s meeting me at the library tonight, to study for our history test.”

  She glanced out the window. The dark was gathering in early today and there were hints of lightning low on the horizon.

  “Do you need a ride?”

  “Nah. My dad’s over at Great Uncle Bub’s. I can walk over and ride back with him.”

  “All right, then. Be careful. The wind’s picking up. Watch out for falling branches on the Vengeance Trail.”

  He rolled his eyes and smirked and was gone.

  Wren put in another hour, packing up board games and daydreaming about marrying Death, before she looked outside again and noticed the way the storm had darkened the afternoon into an early evening. She didn’t like driving on dark, wet roads, especially in the autumn when the deer were out in force, so rather than flipping on the lights she decided to call it a day.

  Gathering her phone and her car keys, she locked the mansion behind her and paused on the porch, waiting for a break in the rain to make a run for her truck. After about five minutes she decided there wasn’t going to be one, so she made a dash for it and climbed into the cab, soaked and out of breath.

  At least, she reflected, she had her truck up here close. She’d have to remember to thank Nichelle again for helping the men put up the bridge.

  She shook the rain out of her eyes, tucked a strand of wet hair behind one ear, and turned the key in the ignition.